Clothing: Celio plans to close a hundred stores and cut more...

Placed in the safeguard procedure at the end of June, the men’s ready-to-wear brand Celio plans to “close 102 stores in branches and cut 383 jobs” as part of a plan to safeguard jobs (PSE ) presented this Wednesday to employee representatives.

“344 jobs in stores and 39 in support functions” are concerned, according to a press release from management specifying that the consultation of the CSE “will extend until the first quarter of 2021” and that the stores will remain open “for the Christmas period , with the exception of a few whose leases are expiring ”.

In this text, management “undertakes to do everything in its power to offer solutions favoring the repositioning of the employees concerned, through internal reclassification measures and personalized support for the construction of external professional projects”.

Nearly 500 stores in France

The brand, founded in 1978, currently has 1,500 stores in 46 countries, including 478 stores in France, and 4,200 employees worldwide, including 2,416 in France as of October 1, 2020. “Part of this network is source of significant financial losses due to the drop in profitability of certain stores, ”explains Celio.

“In the coming months, we will accelerate our transformation,” says Gaëlle de la Fosse, president of the group. The management is in fact preparing a “backup exit” plan to be presented in the first quarter of 2021.

Celio is not the only ready-to-wear brand to bear the brunt of the Covid-19 crisis, since La Halle, André, Naf Naf or Camaïeu have all lost employees. Recently, the American giant Gap announced plans to close all of its stores in Europe by June 2021. The previous two years had already been marked in France by the demonstrations of yellow vests and by social mobilizations against the pension reform, which affected many businesses.

The fear of a new confinement

In addition, the fashion market is “structurally in difficulty” and “has lost 17% of its value over the past ten years”, according to Yohann Petiot, director general of the Alliance du commerce, which brings together the Union du Grand town center trade, the Federation of clothing brands and that of footwear brands.

This Alliance warned, in a press release Tuesday evening, that a re-containment “would have dramatic consequences for trade with the approach of the end of year holiday period”, an “essential” period which “represents more than 20% of the annual turnover of fashion brands, ”notes Yohann Petiot.